Taliban militant and his wife staged attack on Pakistani police (Reuters)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters)-the Taliban to militant and his wife carried out by a terrorist attack on a police station in Pakistan on Saturday which killed 12 policemen, said a spokesman for Taliban suicide Sunday.

The pair, armed with assault rifles and grenades, raided the compound and took a dozen of policemen hostage for several hours in a village near the South Waziristan region, a major al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctuary on the Afghan border.

The operation further tarnished Pakistan's security establishment, which has suffered a setback after another since the killing of Osama bin Laden by u.s. special forces on Pakistani soil, on 2 May.

The Taliban use rarely women suicide bombers. The attack on police station suggests that they are adopting new tactics in a campaign to overthrow the U.S.-backed Government.

The Taliban, husband and wife shot dead five policemen and later blew up after being attacked by commandos, killing seven more policemen died of their wounds overnight, police said.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Pakistani Taliban, said the assault was carried out in retaliation for Government attacks and killing of bin Laden against militants.

"The attackers were a husband and wife. We will keep making attacks with different strategies, "he told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.

Sunday, a bomb planted on a motorcycle just standing outside a police station in the eastern city of Multan injured four policemen, police said.

The Pakistani Taliban movement, which is close to al Qaeda, has stepped up violence in Pakistan after the death of bin Laden, in operations that have embarrassed the military.

The group said it was behind an assault on a large base of Marina in the city of Karachi last month. The Taliban killed almost 100 people in an attack at a paramilitary compound.

Large groups of Pakistani Taliban fighters also have organized large-scale shooting attacks on security forces in other parts of the Northwest.

The United States has been piling pressure on Pakistan to crack down harder on militancy, since it was discovered that bin Laden has been living in Pakistan for years.

Major Pakistani cooperation is needed as Washington tries to wind down the US-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan and defeat al Qaeda and its allies.

But the generals of Pakistan are furious because the United States has kept in the dark over the raid to bin Laden.

(Additional reporting by Baluchi Mustansar; Writing by Kamran Haider; Editing by Sugita Katyal and Michael Georgy)

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